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THE SEMI-WEEKLY JOURNAL
ATLANTA, OA., 5 NORTH FORSYTH ST.
Bntered at the Atlanta Poatofrlce aa Mall Matter of the
Stcond Class.
JAMES *■ GRAY "
President and Editor.
■UBSCRXPTIOH FRXCIL
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of distinguished contributors, with strong d; pertinents
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atives •
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j THE SEMI WEEKLY JOCBXAL, Atlanta. Ga. j
Hopes of a Merchant Marine.
There are cheering signs that legislation for
the establishment of an American merchant marine
will be enacted at the present session of Congress.
Democrats who opposed the original ship purchase
bill have agreed to support a measure that will
meet their objections to permanent government
ownership. That has been the only point at seri
ous issue among the majority of the House or the
Senate, and when that is disposed of a satisfactory
bill should pass with little delay.
The plan now being considered provides for the
purchase or construction of ships that shall com
prise a naval auxiliary in time of war and a na
tional merchant marine in time of peace. These
vessels, according to Washington dispatches, are to
be leased to corporations or individuals for service
In oversea trade, particularly between the United
States and South America. It is presumed that if
private interests will not participate in the enter
prise. the Government itself will operate the ships.
Whatever leases are made will be on the condition
that the merchant fleet shall be at the navy’s com
mand in case of need.
Such a measurj will contribute a vast deal to
the country’s preparedness for war anu peace alike.
If is needful as a measure of defense and is impera
tive from the standpoint of our commercial inter
ests. Inquiries made a few months ago showed
that the freight then awaiting shipment in the port
of New York alone would fill five or six times as
many vessels as were available. So long as this
condition obtains. American commerce will be at a
grievous disadvantage if not in actual danger.
Though our export trade is nq,w enormous, we
are really no better off as regards shipping facilities
than at the outbreak of the European war, when
ninety per cent of our oversea trade was carried
in foreign bottoms.- The fact is, we are worse off
today than ever. Ocean freight rates have ad
vanced until tn some cases they are prohibitive. To
peaceful parts of the world, they are from three to
four times higher than before the war, and to Eu
ropean neutrals they are from six to nine times the
normal- On some routes, for example that between
the United States and Australia, the freight cost
not infrequently exceeds the price of the cargo.
These conditions hinder and discourage the up
building of our commerce in the very regions, such
as South America and the Orient, that will be most
important to us after the war, when Europe will
begin again to supply its own needs and to compete
with us for trade supremacy. The United States
never can develop its opportunities in foreign com
merce nor be secure in such business as it already
holds until it has a merchant marine of its own.
Dependence on the ships of other nations is filled
with handicaps and perils. The distress of the cot
ton market in 1914 might have been prevented or,
at least, alleviated had we possessed a merchant
fleet of our own instead of being at the mercy of
belligerent carriers.
If there was ever a doubt that private interests
are unable to meet this need as fully and promptly
aa it ought to be met, the record of the last seven
teen months gives a conclusive answer. While there
has been marked activity in ship-building yards,
the disparity between the number of vessels de
manded and those available Is as great as ever, If
BOt greater. Only the Government itself is strong
enough to meet this emergency. As a matter of
common justice to the country. It is to be hoped
that legislation to solve this urgent problem will be
agreed upon and made operative in the near future.
Markets for Our Peace Products.
If we are to escape an industrial reaction after
the war, our manufacturers must develop oversea
markets for their products of peace. This timely
advice, which has been on the tongues of far
sighted observers for seasons past, was urged with
particular emphasis at the recent meeting of the
National Foreign Trade Council at New Orleans.
It is not to be expected that our vast volume of
European exports will continue when the belliger
ents declare a truce. Mr. Alba B. Johnson, presi
dent of the Baldwin Locomotive Works, reminded
the delegates to the New Orleans convention that
many of the war orders which now swell our for
eign trade balance are subject to Instant cancella-»
tion. A sudden stoppage of that kind, unless dis
counted well In advance, would be broadly de
pressing. American industry now thrives upon
conditions that are extraordinary. It must be pre
pared to bold its own In a normal world, if its
prosperity is to remain undtminished.
The readiest markets for our peace products,
it appears, are in Latin America, and among the
surest means of cultivating tLuse markets is the
investment of capital there. “Trade follows the
money.” and the New York Commercial tersely
remarks. The trade achievements of Great Brit
ain and Germany in Latin America have been due
very largely to their service to Latin America’s
financial needs. They have helped to build rail
roads and to promote other developments. As a
natural result. Central and South American trade
flowed responsivlely to the European creditors.
Now that Europe has been forced to withdraw
these accommodations, and for years to come will
be unable to resume them, the United States has a
broad opportunity to intrench itself In the interests
of its southern neighbors.
If a man dnes nothing, he makes a mistake, and
If he attempts to do tilings, bis mistakes are many.
THE ATLANTA SEMI-WEEKLY JOURNAL, ATLANTA, GA., TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 1916.
England Fully Armed.
Under England’s compulsory service law,
which becomes effective tomorrow, some two mil
lion men will be added to the nation's fighting
forces. Not all these will be called to the front
or kept under arms, for many will be needed at
home in the war’s industrial tasks. But the moral
as well as the military effect of this great muster
will be none the less potent. England knows, and
the world knows, that at last she is aroused and is
ready to put forth her utmost strength.
Apprehensions that compulsory service would
encounter serious opposition have dwindled away.
The bill passed on its final reading in the House
of Commons by a vote of three hundred and
eighty-three to thirty-six. Protests still are heard
from certain groups of the labor element, but it
is significant that in the trade unionists conference
recently held at Bristol the delegates, represent
ing two million or more organized workingmen,
voted by a tremendous majority to stand stanchly
by the Government in waging the war to a victori
ous end. The true mind and heart of British labor
was voiced by James Sexton, representative of the
Dock Workers, who declared, in reply to the anti
war faction: “If Germany wins, nothing else on
God’s earth matters.’* 'No doubt there will be con
tinued protests, and in some cases, perhaps, resist
ance to conscription as a theory, but the country’s
sentiment surges too strongly the other way for
these eddies to matter.
Lloyd-George estimates that, directly, the com
pulsion measure affects hardly more than half a
million men. There are nearly nine hundred thou
sand married men, how’ever, who have offered their
services on the condition that they be called to
the colors after all the single men of eligible age
and circumstance have enlisted; and besides these,
there are upwards of half a million single men who
have volunteered but who feel that the “slackers"
should be whipped into line. Thus conscription, if
such it may be termed in this instance, will be
valuable chiefly In vindicating the vast patriotic
majority against a recreant few.
The idea that the English spirit has lagged
behind its traditions is not borne out by the fact
that six million men answered the call for vol
unteers. Some of them were rejected because of
physical disabilities, and large numbers were re
quired for the munition works and railroads and
mines. But today England owns the greatest
army she ever produced. "We have three million
soldiers,” says Lloyd-George, “and by spring we
shall have four million—solid, fit and well
equipped.’’ There was a woeful lack of prepared
ness; there were delays and muddling, so that in
the first year of the w’ar British land power count
ed for only a fraction of its potential strength.
But, if we may judge by the signs of the day,
England at last is girded, body and soul, for the
fight that she means never to give up.
A Tariff Commission.
Sometimes it takes more courage and certainly
more intelligence to change one’s mind than it does
to maintain one’s convictions. A year ago the
President opposed the establishment of a tariff
commission; today he favors it. He prefers to be
consistent with the country’s needs as they are
rather than with his own views as they were.
In reality, however, he is not at all inconsist
ent. The kind of tariff commission to which he
objected a year ago was distinctly different from
that which he now advocates. The purpose of the
one w’as political, of the other it is economic. The
Republicans sought a tariff commission as a means
of readjusting import duties to suit special inter
ests; they were looking backward to the old days
of arbitrarily high protection. Mr. Wilson favors
a commission as a means of acquiring exact and
comprehensive knowledge in the light of which the
tariff can be readjusted, as occasion requires, to
the country's common Interests; he is looking for
ward to the new days and new conditions that
will follow the w’ar. As he expressed it in his re
cent New York address:
“There is going on in the world, under
our eyes, an economic revolution. No man un
’derstands that revolution; no man has the ele
ments of it clearly in his mind. And mem
bers of Congress are too busy, their duties
are too multifarious and distracting to make it
possible, within a sufficiently short space of
time, for them to master the change that is
coming. There is so much to understand that
we have not the data to comprehend that I
for one would not dare to leave the Govern
ment without the adequate means of inquiry."
It is to meet these conditions that a non-par
tisan board, working on broadly scientific lines, is
needed. By that means, the tariff will be kent out
of politics, and the welfare of American industry
and of the American public will be protected.
Beyond Imagination.
The total British casualties in all fields of the
war up to January 9 are reported at five hundred
and forty-nine thousand, four hundred and sixty
seven, of which about one hundred and twenty
nine thousand represent the killed, and the re
mainder the wounded and missing.
The meaning of these figures becomes clearer
when it is recalled that during the entire four
years of the American War Between the States the
number of men on the ’Northern side who were
killed in battle or who died of wounds barely ex
ceeded one hundred and ten thousand, while the
fatalities on the Southern side were appreciably
fewer. When to the. British casualties are added
the estimated losses of the other belligerents, the
total reaches the staggering figure of two million
killed, approximately four million wounded and two
million captured. In all history there is nothing
to which this vast sacrifice can be compared.
General Francis V. Greene observes in a recent
number of the Outlook that in our war of the
’Sixties, of whicn we were wont to speak as “the
greatest conflict of modern times,” the number of
men actually under arms was never more than a
million, three hundred thousand; and that in the
Napoleonic wars from 1796 to 1815 “the largest
army ever assembled was that which Napoleon led
into Russia in 1812, numbering somewhat in excess
of five hundred thousand.” In the present war,
it. is estimated, some thirteen million men are un
der arms; and. as General Greene points out, the
German forces alone engaged in Russia and in the
West are more than six times as great as Napoleon’s
greatest army.
We speak of the magnitude of this war, but the
fact is we cannot grasp its huge and terrible pro
portions. Not even a Miltonic imagination could
picture iL
Your Family Doctor
• BY H. ADDINGTON BRUCE.
MOST people take a far too narrow view of the
functions of the family doctor.
They regard him simply as a man trained in
the treatment of bodily disease. They call on his
services only when some member of the family is man
ifestly ill. Often they wait until illness is quite ad
vanced before they send for him.
But the family doctor should be called on to do
much more tlfhn treat disease.
His aid should be sought in the great work of pre
venting disease and conserving the family health. Reg
ularly, once or twice a year, every member of the
family should be thoroughly examined by him.
In this way unsuspected weaknesses, perhaps even
disease in early stages, will be detected, and preventive
or remedial measures may be recommended.
Also the family doctor should be consulted with
regard to matters of household hygiene.
Many of the requirements for continued health —
proper ventilation, drainage, precautions against food
infection, etc. —are neglected simply because of igno
rance of their real importance. The head of every
family should make it a point to obtain from his
physician all the information he can give regarding
sanitary safeguards.
Further still, the family doctor's advice should be
asked in respect to mental as well as physical health.
This is particularly important as concerns the younger
members of the family.
Indeed, it is no exaggeration to say that in the up
bringing of the young there should always be close
co-operation between parent, teacher, and family doc
tor. As Dr. George W. Jacoby, in his informative book,
’•Child Training As An Exact Science," well says:
"The basis of all pedagogic training must be the
there exist a healthy mind, one capable of harmonious
development. Protection of the body against disease
bearing influences which react upon the psychic func
tions, or the removal of an existing disorder, does not
belong to the domain of pedagogic science, but is part
of medicine and hygiene.
"For this reason the teacher and educator cannot
repel the co-operation of the physician.
"We may go still further and maintain that in the
case of healthy children as well, the science of medicine
is a necessary adjunct to pedagogy.
"There can be no doubt that many teachers and
educators, through an inadequate understanding or
knowledge of the psychology of childhood, commit
grave errors which manifest themselves in overtaxa
tion, excessive severity, and a disregard of the require
ments of school hygiene; and which, sooner or later,
result in disordered development of the child.
“Then, too, there are children who, occupying a bor
der line between health and disease, for the time being
do not manifest any decided deficiency, and therefore
give the impression that they are normally developed,
but who, because of their slight neuropathic heritage,
easily break down as a result of increased pedagogic
treatment.
“In such cases the pedagogic task of medicine is a
prophylactic (preventive) one, while wherever the
psychopathic inferiority is marked, it must be a ques
tion of remedial influence.’’
Clearly, there is much that the family doctor can
do which at present he is doing only in exceptional
cases.
When he will begin to do it more extensively de
pends chiefly, of course, on public sentiment. The
sooner this inclines to the view here set forth, the
better for the public.
(Copyright, 1916, by H. A. Bruce.)
For the Class Room
BY DR. FRANK CRANE.
THE class in newspaper reading will now stand up.
Your teacher today is going to give you a test
on war news. Please answer promptly, but if
you do not know, say so.
1. What is meant by the triple entente? The triple
alliance?
2. Name the Balkan states.
3. What language do the inhabitants of Bulgaria
speak?
4. What is the capital df Rumania? Os Bulgaria?
Os Serbia? Os Montenegro? Os Albania?
5. Why did the allies think Greece ought to have
joined them in resisting the destruction of Serbia?
6. What and where is Gallipoli? The Vosges?
Salonikl?
7. Is the ruler in any other country than Russia
called a czar?
8. What is the difference between an emperor and
a king?
9. What relation is the king of England to the em
peror of Germany?
10. Who is the king of Prussia?
11. W'hat is a dirigible? A monoplane? A peri
scope? A mitrailleuse? A Zeppelin?
12. Name six neutral countries. ,
13. What is the Monroe doctrine? Pan-American
ism?
14. Why does our secretary of state, in his letters
to foreign powers, sign his name simply "Lansing”
without giving his first name or initials?
15. What is an ultimatum?
16. What reasons does Germany give for the be
ginning of the war? What reasons do France and Eng
land give?
17. Why do people think it is wrong for one man
to kill another, and right for an army of men to kill
wholesale?
18. What language do the people of Switzerland
speak? The people of Belgium?
19. What other republics are there in Europe be
sides France and Switzerland?
20. What is meant by the term "hyphenated Amer
ican?”
21. Tell something about the following persons:
Brand Whitlock, Bethmann-Hollweg, Poincare, Asquith,
Grey, Joffre, Kitchener. f
22. How was the Lusitania case finally settled?
23. Where are these places: Riga, Bagdad, Warsaw,
Monastir, the Marne, Louvain, Hartlepool? Te some
thing concerning each plgce in connection with the
present war.
24. What does “persona non grata” mean? Soixante
quinze Boche? Piou-piou? Tommy Atkins? Cos
sack? Hussar?
25. Why do they kill spies when they capture them,
yet treat kindly the prisoners taken in battle?
26. What is meant by Italia irridenta?
27. What is a censor? A minister? A consul? A
charge d’affaires? An envoy extraordinary?
(Copyright, 1916, by Fran'.. Cr .ne.)
Editorial Echoes.
Mr. Wilson has handled the foreign affairs of
this country during the most trying period since
the Cival War. He alone knows of all the difficul
ties and embarrassments that he. has encountered,
and he alpne knows the weight of the responsi
bility which he had to bear alone, for it is a
responsibility that cannot be shared or shifted. He
alone knows what obstacles our unpreparedness
has interposed to the successful assertion and
maintenance of our rights “as a consensus of civ
ilized peoples has defined them.” No other man's
opinion on the need of national defense is of any
value whatever in comparison with his opinion,
for he has been through the mill. He can speak
with an authority that is denied to everybody else.
We can understand why men of earnest and honest
convictions might oppose the President’s program
on the ground that it does not go so far as the
exigencies of the situation demand, but we are un
able to understand why any intelligent citizen
should assert that it goes too far. When we con
sider the position in which the United States is
already placed through no fault of its own, when,
as the President says, “we do not know what the
circumstances of another month or another day
may bring forth,” it is the sheerest folly for any
man to assume that we ought to act as if we were
living on another planet, and make no provision for
eventualities. —New York World.
THE American people seem to be pretty generally
agreed that the United States as a nation is
facing a crisis and ought to prepare to meet it.
There have also sprung up a large number of different
ideas as to how we ought to prepare. Unless we can
agree upon a method, the result will be either a com
promise or nothing at all. So it is for you to care
fully consider these different ways of getting ready
and decide which one you are going to support.
• • •
In the first place, th«*re are the pacificists. These
ladies and gentlemen believe that we should prepare
to assume our place as an international force by abol
ishing the army and navy and meeting belligerents
with argument and persuasion. This method is sim
ple, Inexpensive and actuated by the highest ideals.
But it is purely experimental, and for this reason does
not appeal to the majority of practical-minded Amer
icans as a proper expedient in a crisis.
• a a
Those who agree that we can best insure peace by
preparing to fight are very much divided as to how we
should go about it. All of them state that we should
increase our navy, and there is only one way to do this;
namely, by building more ships and manning them.
When it comes to land forces, however, it is more dif
ficult to agree upon a method.
• • •
To strengthen the regular army, would seem the
most direct and the easiest way to increase our land,
forces. All advocates of preparedness are agreed that
we should Increase the regular army, but to recruit
all of our necessary strength In this way is impracti
cable because of the tremendous expense. Half a
million men are needed for the proper defense of con
tinental United States in case of war. To support a
regular army of this size would be an unjustifiable
burden. The regular army, therefore, will be made
only large enough to police our over-seas possessions
and give us a mobile force in continental .America of
perhaps 50,000 men—enough to take care of Internal
and border troubles.
• • •
This leaves about 400,000 troops to be raised from
among the citizens of the United States, and it is here
that the great differences of opinion become manifest.
There are three principal methods by which these
troops might be raised; namely, by Introducing com
pulsory military service, by strengthening the state
militia, or by using the present volunteer army sys
tem, with modifications, to raise a force of the re
quired size in time of peace. Each of these methods
has a strong backing. The latter is the socalled con
tinental army plan, which is being advocated by the
administration.
• • «
All military experts assert that compulsory mil
itary service is the only effective way to be prepared
for war, and that the United States will never be
safe against attack until this plan Is adopted. The
abstract argument in favor of compulsory service is
practically perfect If you grant that the nation should
be defended at all. For it must, then, be the duty
of the citizens to defend It, and a duty is essentially
compulsory. To wait until there is war and then rely
upon volunteers for defense is in reality about as
practicable as waiting until the country faces bank
ruptcy and then calling upon volunteers to pay taxes.
Compulsory service in this country would probably
mean that every able-bodied American male would
serve one year of his life, probably the twenty-first
year, as a soldier, and would thereafter be subject to
call for military service. It Is estimated that
one year of compulsory service would give the
United States an army of from 750,000 to a million
men. Thus even six months of compulsory service,
which would be enough training to make a fair soldier
of a man, would probably give us the necessary force
of four hundred thousand.
• • •
The chief practical objection against this plan is
that it would take more men away from industry
than were absolutely necessary for defense. This
objection could probably be largely overcome by in
telligent regulation. The real objection to the plan
is that the American people do not want it. At least,
NEW YORK, Jan. 29. —The first famous "war bride”
of Wall street has demonstrated its fruitfulness.
Bethlehem Steel's 30 per cent dividend on its
common stock is quite a healthy product, thank you!
A list of Bethlehem's largest shareholders (there are
150,000 shares of common stock outstanding) is headed
by its president, Charles M. Schwab, who is reported to
own 50,000 shares; then some 41,000 shares are held for
a number of other officers of the company, and the next
in line are two sons of Samuel Untermyer with 8,800
shares.
The Untermyer shares are part of a total of 15,000,
which Samuel Untermyer bought some years ago; he
has said that they cost him less than S2O a share, and
that he put money into them at that low price because
he had faith in Mr. Schwab.
It was a richly rewarded faitn; the reward came far
sooner than Mr. Untermyer expected it, for it is said
that when he received his stock certificates he called
his two sons to him and said:
"Boys, I bought this for you. It may be that 1 shall
not see any return from that stock, but some day it
will pay big dividends."
In raising Bethlehem Steel to a stock that pays S3O
a share Mr. Schwab has placed himself at the very top
of American steel masters.
• • •
New Orleans this week will entertain some hundreds
of millionaires and foreign trade experts at the third
foreign trade convention. To go over the list of dele
gates is like thumbing a list of prize Income tax payers.
That would be the reader's first impression after
noting that the special train from New York bore such
a freight of big steel, equipment powder, electrical,
banking, engineering, and steamship ipagnates as
James A. Farrell, president of the Steel trust; Mr. Grif
fith and Mr. Coster, of the Westinghouse company; Mr.
Fowler and Mr. Franklin, of the Grace Steamship Line
and the International Mercantile Marine; Willard
Straight, of the new American International corpora
tion.
A second reading of the list of delegates, however,
reveals a sprinkling of professors and department of
commerce students!
“How is this?” a Wall street observer asks. "What
have the book and theory men got to do with building
up foreign trade?” It is a pertinent question. They
haven't had much to do with our own industries —that
is, until the last few years, during which Germany has
shown how to make her professors a commercial asset.
"Willie!" cried Sir. -Hotspur, while the family were
at breakfast, "how many times must I teM you not to
jump up from the table and walk around the room?”
“I was only goin’ to —”
"I don't care what you were going to do! No well
bred person jumps up from the table and capers around
the floor. It Is extremely impolite and to others most
annoying. Take your seat this instant and remember
what I have told you.
“Yes, sir,” said Willie.
But the next night, when Willie and his little
brothers and sisters were snugly tucked in bed, Mr.
and Mrs. Hotspur went out to the theater and to supper.
“Qime on, Clara,” cried Mr. Hotspur, jumping up
from the table in the restaurant. “If that fat coppie
over there can fox trot in public I guess we can. Come
on!"
Moral —Consistency ends at home. —Puck.
• • •
The following should be appreciated by our friend,
the angler, who must be weary of having his state
ments doubted:
At the monthly meeting of a certain homing society
one of the members related an interesting experience.
He had, he said, recently sold a couple of "squeakers”
—very young pigeons—to a man whose cote was 200
miles away. He sent them off by train, and was
HOW SHALL WE PREPARE?
BY FKEDXBIC I. HASKIN
GOSSIP ABOUT MONEY
BY. JOHN M. OSKISON.
QUIPS AND QUIDDITIES
so say all of the legislators, and the secretary of war
and other high officials concur. They say that the
American people would regard compulsory service as
an infringement upon their liberty, and that they are
not convinced of the necessity of such a step for
national defense. So compulsory military service,
while conceded by all to be the most practicable and
effective step, is not actively supported by anyone.
« • •
There are a good many congressmen who would
like to see our land forces increased by giving
eral aid to the militia, thus encouraging enlistment Mi
that body. This plan is supported by congressmen,
as it would make *hem popular with the local militia.
All students of the situation are agreed, however, shat
an effective army could not possitly be bull* up In
this way. The constitution makes it impossible to
put the state militia, as such, under federal control.
It must remain under the control of forty-eight dif
ferent states, and an army thus divided would violate
the first principle of* military organization, ’which is
centralized control. The United States government
could not insure itself in any way as to the
efficiency or strength of state militia. It could merely
subsidize these organizations, and trust them to do the
rest.
• • •
The remaining plan under consideration is that,
which has been drawn by the administration and laid
before the congressional committees by the secretary
of war. It has been called the continental army plan,
and is simply a method for raising a volunteer army
in time of peace.
• • •
This plan, in brief, proposes to raise 400,000 volun
teers in three annual increments of 133,000 men each.
The country would be divided up into districts, the
present congressional districts probably being used,
and each of them would be requested to furnish its
quota of men. If the congressional districts were used
as a basis, each of them would be required to furnish
133,000 men annually. These men would enlist for
three years and would be on furlough for three years.
• • •
During his three years of enlistment, however, this
proposed volunteer would serve probably not more than
two months a year. This period of annual service has
been suggested by the secretary of war. He, however,
states expressly that the details of the plan should be
left open in the law, to be provided by regulation. The
essentials of the plan are that the volunteers would
enlist in time of peace and agree to serve for a few
months or weeks every year until they had become
competent soldiers, while for another period of years
they would be subject to call.
• • •
T’re advocates of this plan depend upon the public
sentiment in favor of national preparedness to insure
a sufficient enlistment. They believe that men would
enlist in this force much more readily than in the
militia, because the continenUl army would be a body
for federal defense only, and could not be called upon
for police duty as is the militia. There are about 129.-
000 men in the state militia. If a little more than
three times this number enlist in the continental army,
the desired force will be reached.
• • •
The objection to this plan is that it does not insure
any force at all. There is also a drawback in the fact
that it will become a aort of a rival to the state militia
and that these two organizations may contend for men
and money to the detriment of both. On the other
hand, the provision that state and militia men may
enlist in the continental army without change of rank
may do much to obviate the latter difficulty.
• ♦ •
The advocates of the continental army plan admit
its drawbacks, but say that it is the best plan whic-i
can be drawn in view of the present state of public
sentiment and the legal difficulties. This plan, how
ever, will undoubtedly foster our growing nationalism.
All sections will have a personal share.and pride in
this new volunteer army, and that alone will be worth
millions. Had there been a continental army raised in
this way in 1860, there could never have been a Civil j
war.
Now the book men are to be given a chance to get in
the very front of this new campaign to win world trade
for the American business man.
• • •
Probably the only individual in our time whose fail
ure could be compared in importance with that of a
railway company is old Josiah V. Thompson, of Union
town, Pa.
Thompson failed about a year ago, with liabilities of
some $40,000,000. His failure wrecked a national bank
that was said to be the strongest, in ratio of surplus
to capital, of any in the country. There yet remain
about $25,000,000 of debts to be liquidated, but it is
said that the coal lands in Thompson’s name are worth
some $50,000,000, so the task of the “reorganization
committee" which is in charge of the property does nor
appear at all hopeless.
Thompson worked alone —no corporation for him!
He fought some very powerful coal and steel -interests
until he could stand up no longer. Now, in the most
approved modern fashion, he is to be reorganized by a
committee which includes some very well-known bank
ers, coke and coal magnates, a steel man, and a pub
lisher of Mr. Thompson's home town. Samuel Unter
myer, whose activities as a financial lawyer have in
creased remarkably since he attacked the money trust
in hearings before congress committees, is counsel to
the committee.
• • •
Two New York bankers told the other day. in a
hearing before a legislative committee, how the bankers
saved the credit of New York City at the outbreak of
the European war. You will remember that veij soon
after the war broke, the city had to meet a payment
of $80,000,000 due to British lenders, and that financial
conditions were such that it cost the city 6 per cent to
borrow money through the bankers to meet the debt.
Henry P. Dawison, of J. P. Morgan & Co., and
Francis L. Hine, head of the First National bank, were
the bankers called before the legislative committee to
criticize the city’s financial system. They did this
freely. *
The gist of their criticisms was that New York is a
reckless borrower, and for the sake of the bankers*
peace of mind they hoped the city would never again
have to appeal to them in such a strait.
It may seem incredible to some of us who imagine
that the big Wall street bankers are constantly plotting
to get everybody to mortgage the future, but the bank
ers are urging upon New York the pay-as-you-go pol
icy. It is a good one, by the way.
astounded to find them back in the old cote*a couple
of days later?
There was a •P-’nful silence, broken at length by the
president’s “Wonderful!”
“You doubt my word?” demanded the narrator of
the story.
"Not a bit of it!” was the reply. "It's a strange
coincidence, that’s all. I sold the very same man a
setting of eggs in the middle of June. Before the end
of the month those birds had hatched out and had
flown back to me! Homing instinct’s a wonderful
thing!”
• • •
A «man entered a grocery store and ordered some
eggs.
“That man always buys fresh eggs,” whispered a .
small egg, peeping out from the depths of the basket.
“Huh!” scoffed the big egg on top, “yuh can’t tel)
me that. I wasn’t laid yesterday.”—Judge.
• • •
“So my daughter has consented to become your wife.
Have you fixed the day of the wedding?”
“I will leave that to her.”
“Will you have a church or private wedding?"
"Her mother can decide that.”
"What have you to live on?”
“I will leave that entirely to you, air."
